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Jivecat writes "All those extra cameras NASA has added to the Space Shuttle to watch for debris impacts have yielded what may be the coolest Shuttle launch footage ever. The forward-facing view from the right-hand SRB shows, at about the 2:58 mark, booster separation and Discovery zooming away. Other views are available at the main mission site."

For the one video linked, I'm amazed it didn't get slashdotted immediately. Very interesting to watch the launch sequence. At 3 min, I thought it was getting a bit boring, but wondered what else was interesting in the rest of the footage. At about 8 min, it got interesting again, with the very quick transition from "over the clouds" to "underwater". Not much new to see after 9 min though.

I do wish my webcam could deal with that wide a range of operating environments though! You quickly forget the engineering that goes into something as simple as a camera housing.

Anyways, if you haven't seen it yet, check out the right SRB looking-down-o-cam [akamai.com]. Great shot of the shadow of the smoke trail, and as the main orbiter engines light off you can see the whole orbiter start to press up on the structure. Then the explosive bolts blow and the boosters rip to life. Very cool.

At about 8 min, it got interesting again, with the very quick transition from "over the clouds" to "underwater".

That was pretty cool, wasn't it. I also thought it was pretty cool how the booster stood up after it hit the water. I wasn't aware that they were designed to do that. I guess that makes them easier to spot from the recovery ships.

Man, those engineeers thought of everything didn't they - here's another example that I heard recently: the metal that the external tank is made of isn't strong enough

> For the one video linked, I'm amazed it didn't get slashdotted immediately.

If I could just download the copy of/right_forward_srb_camera.wmv being mirrored through (funky.dns.tricks.akamaistream.net), it would probably have stayed up longer.

But a certain DRM-infected media player doesn't welcome the SaveAs menu overlord. After all, how dare anyone think of downloading something (at whatever bitrate their client, or the overloaded server, might support) to your hard drive where you could play it back at your leisure, when you can just download the same content, asking the central server for permission over and over again, every time you wanted to see something?

Streaming video blows goats. The video's probably in the public domain. Put up a goddamn downloadable.MOV,.MPG, or yes, even a.WMV link. But enough of the streaming video, and don't even get me started on a site that requires a Javashit popup to load the goddamn.asx file that points to the streaming video in the first place. Web design ain't rocket science -- it's EASIER than rocket science. Last time I checked, there were a few folks at NASA who have the requisite skills, right?

To give credit to rocket scientists who do get it, check out how the JPL folks working on the Cassini mission [nasa.gov] handle videos. You know before you click, not just what format it's in, but how big it's gonna be, and you get to save everything to disk.

Earth to NASA: Dump the streaming video, at least for public domain content.

Something like 4m 30s of freefall (3:00-7:30) on that video. Very neat. Can someone with greater knowledge than I explain how the camera survived re-entry, or is there no re-entry at that altitude yet?

The SRB's never technically 'leave' the atmosphere so they can't re-enter. They are going pretty fast but not Mach 25 like the shuttle and station are doing on orbit. Maybe a few (2-4) Mach. Actually the shuttle goes quite slow while the SRB's are on because the atmosphere is so dense at low altitudes (the SRB's are only on for just over 2 minutes) because dynamic pressure builds up quickly ( a linear function of air density and a square of velocity ) so you keep your velocity at a fair clip until the atmosphere thins and then speed up. Long story short the SRB's aren't going that fast, and the cameras are in a good housing. The cam itself is made by these guys [eclipticenterprises.com]

Re-entry heat is mostly about aerobraking from orbital speeds.. the SRBs separate fairly early while still in the atmosphere and travelling relatively slowlow - so while I'm sure there is some friction heat from the atmosphere it's nothing like what happens when you try and drop 20,000 mph by slamming into the upper atmostphere.

These are cool views, but NASA has always had a set of cameras (albeit smaller) watching launches. In the "Leaving the Cradle - Apollo 8" series of DVDs from the NASA archives, you can (repetitively!) watch the launch from a variety of viewpoints.

In every view, you are amazed to see a shower of ice and who-knows-what kind of debris as these huge missiles shook themselves off and flung themselves into orbit.

The shuttle is stronger than nearly any plane on earth. However, the velocities, energy and stresses involved are far greater than any plane on earth faces.A 1.5 lb chunk of foam travelling at >500 mph generates at least 10,000 lbs of force/sq ft when it impacts. There are not many materials that can survive that and still be light enough to fly into space with a decent sized cargo. At least, not at a reasonable cost (and many think the shuttle's cost is unreasonable as it is). It is simply a hazard

the reason the crew module was on top of those was so if needed, it could be ejected (the very top of the stack was an ejection booster). Also, they were using rocket designs based on ICBMs which obviously had their payload in the nose. Heck, gemini missions were launched on the very icbm's that also carried nuclear warheads.early shuttle designs actually did have the shuttle on top of the nose of the launch rocket. i'm not sure the reason for the change, but i do believe the shuttle on those designs was

I am amazed at how these cameras manage to survive and produce a steady image from the atmosphere, into space, and back. This leads me to believe that instead of using foam insulation, we should cover the entire shuttle in cameras.

That's what I want to know. All the SRB's I'm familiar with are essentially just tubes with a nozzle on the end, so what's to stop the water from heading up the nozzle and filling the thing in? From the head-down camera, the thing actually eventually ends up sitting straight up and down in the water! I'd like to know how they managed that...

I don't think these security words are convenient anymore, not when mine was "fished"

When they land tail first, the air(or gasses left over from combustion) gets trapped in the tube and this is what makes the SRB buoyant. I did notice from the rear camera view, that the SRB appears to almost get horizontal right after landing, but it still seems to remained pitched at such an angle that gas should still be contained inside. Then it settles in an upright orientation. Check this out: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/pdf/146685main _srb-et.pdf [nasa.gov] And: http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/under [navy.mil]

A lot of the cameras are transmitting images during launch, so it's possible this was picked up in near real-time during the launch (that's how CNN got such cool video of the bits of foam flying off at T+3m or so.

Thank you! I've always been curious what the technical term for that phenomenon was... and, ironically, it was right in the APOD article where I first saw the image of that F/A-18 hornet. Yay for poor reading!

1:30-1:40 Mach transition (breaking the sound barrier - watch the nose)2:39 a rather visible bit of debris flies right past the camera2:58 separation from the orbiter/tank stack3:59 as the booster tumbles, you can briefly spot the shuttle as a bright dot5:18 you can see the smoke plume thru the upper atmosphere7:13 some debris goes past the booster camera7:17 you can see a shroud (parachute) line falling7:25 you can very briefly see a chute7:30 water entry7:40 the chute falls into the water8:00 as the booster floats, the chutes and shroud lines are clearly visible around the booster

Just in case NASA changes the links/Web page. Right Forward SRB Camera [akamai.com]. This one shows the space shuttle launching from the launch pad, to space, and then crashing into the water (not going underwater like the other video).

Is that the other booster already in the water when this one touches down? You catch a glimpse of something churning up water right before this one hits. If it is, i would never have guessed they land so close to each other considering the trip down.

Thanks for the link. I downloaded and saved both movies. Then, I used Quicktime's Play All Movies to watch both at once and to have them be perfectly synchronized. It is interesting to see what happens in the different views at the same time. I feel like I'm the mission commander;)

The main thing coming to mind watching that video as the booster fell after the lens cleaned off was:

I'm dizzy with anticipation! Or is it the wind? There's an awful lot of that now isn't it? And whats this thing coming toward me very fast? So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like 'Ow', 'Ownge', 'Round', 'Ground'! Thats it! Ground! Ha! I wonder if it'll be friends with me? Hello Ground!

Shorter then any hollywood film I've seen, and it moved me more then any film I've ever seen. The launch probably cost the same. If this isn't proof of the results a small percentage of our bomb making taxes can provide, I don't think you're a sane person.

Say a typical hollywood blockbuster costs $100 million... the launch cost at least five times that much. I think I remember reading that each shuttle launch was half a billion on average. These last two probably cost way more, due to all the additional work, testing, engineering, these new cameras, and the fact that fixed costs can't be ammortized over several launches a year.

Government access doesn't begin and end with office document formats, and proprietary video formats are probably one of the worst problems of this kind. Massachusetts' and Belgium's plans are a good start, but they need to start using things like Theora etc. too.

Go to a library or internet cafe. View the video from a computer there.

It's not like Windows Media is some obscure format that requires special access to use. Yes it's proprietary, but it's not like you are prevented from viewing this or have been oppressed. You have been at most inconvienced.

How a large majority of the people visiting the site are probalby using windows, and therefore probably can view the video. And if they can instantly satisfy those requests without the user needing special software, then that's a large majority of the people taken care of instead of none. Of course, they could have just used mpeg which would have helped everyone.
And I love how you argue "added expenses" and say that a library might be too far a way when you probably spent a good amount of money on the c

What about a homeless man, isn't he entitled to watch the shuttle launch videos as well? By not dragging a TV down to his corner and letting him look at it, the government is requiring special access (access to a computer) to get at the information!

That's a physical limitation, not an arbitrary one. The government should minimize physical limitations, but because it has finite resources we have to accept that not all of them can be eliminated. However, there is no excuse for imposing additional arbitrary o

"agreed, I never understood why these guys choose the formats they do. Why not a simple mpg? (Honestly - why?)"

This format is streaming. MPEG1 doesn't do streaming. I can't tell you why they did it, but that answers why not MPEG.

As for why MPEG1 isn't used generally: It takes 150KB (yes, kilo BYTES) per second to get a decent quality 320 by 240 clip. That's too inefficient. Unfortunately, the more efficient you get, the less people will be willing to download it. You and I already have XviD installe

Nice to see our government is looking out for the interests of all and protecting the freedom of all to access govt. publications by putting these in a proprietary format like Windows Media Video.

The camera supplier [eclipticenterprises.com] has a history of offering these amazing videos in MPEG format. Lets hope the new Discovery videos will be added to the last. The image of the orbiter/ET accelerating from the spent boosters is some of the most spectacular aerospace footage I have ever seen.

I swear people here whine so much about NASA it's unbelievable.I'm convinced that the mind boggling variety of publicly available NASA footage, pictures and video will never be enough for some. You can watch live NASA tv in Realplayer, Quicktime, Windows Media, or Browse to Yahoo and watch it with their flash player.

As the geek I am, NASA is one of the few govermental agencies that I cherrish. If I want to know something about some planet, any planet, it's probabbly thanks to the work that NASA has done.

Does your webcam do that at Mach 25? How about at very high (hundreds or thousands of degrees F.) of heat? Something tells me the quality of your webcam suffers (ie, it melts) in those sorts of situations...

Yes, it has been resized, cropped and compressed. Someone else posted a link to an MPEG file from NASA that was twice the resolution. Apparently it was from an analog NTSC source. It was full of interlacing artifacts, and it had black bars on both sides. Whoever released the WMV apparently just discarded one set of fields and halved the horizontal resolution instead of deinterlacing. They also cropped to remove the black bars and compressed it to a pretty low bitrate.

The webcams are on there to monitor the shuttle going up. They put video clips on the internet for all the people who like to see shuttle launches (how much closer can you get, sitting on the SRB?)

Besides, the shuttle is getting mothballed in 2010, the CEV will be in service (hopefully) in 2014. There is no support needed so long as shuttle tiles aren't being whacked off by falling foam/ice. (And if we do have problems, Griffin himself said he'd mothball the program early)

There's been over 100 successful shuttle missions. Every single one of these is astonishing to me, even though I may agree with plenty of the criticisms of the programme. There's a visceral joy in seeing these things do their stuff -- ageing, expensive and cumbersome though they may be.

I cannot for a second understand how [i]anything[/i] to do with spaceflight -- even the simplest satellite deployment -- could be classed as mundane.

Are you kidding? You can see the curvature of the earth by the time they separate (T+3 min). You can still see the curvature as they tumble back to earth, even sections of continents, weather patterns, etc. The Shuttle and SRBs are definitely very high up when they separate. As other people have already pointed out, the SRBs don't go with the shuttle all the way into orbit, just give the orbiter a boost through most of the atmosphere.

About 125 seconds after launch and at an altitude of about 150,000 feet, the SRB's burn out and are jettisoned from the ET. The jettison command originates from the Orbiter, and jettison occurs when the forward and aft attach points between the SRB's and ET are blown by explosive charges.

Yep, SRB seperation generally happens over the Atlantic, somewhere within range of the launch site so the ships can sail out and recover them (and so that in the event of an emergency landing at KSC or Spain, we don't send some very powerful rockets at Morocco). Now, those living in the Indian Ocean may see ET debris, but it re-enters at a very high altitude and disintegrates fairly quickly (the foam tends to shed fairly quickly before re-entry, so imagine during).

Actually, just after it enteres the water it spends quite a while looking at something that looks an awful like like a slightly distorted head of Elvis as seen in side profile (sideburns and hair and all). Take a look.